Chuck vs the Instinct
by KittyGoddess415
Summary: A month after the season finale, Chuck is still assimilating the new Intersect, and the missions keep coming. WARNING: main character s are harmed in this fic! Ch. 4 and 5 are the two alternate endings. Upgraded rating for Angst ending, all other ch. K .
1. Chapter 1

Title: Chuck vs. the Instinct

Author: KittyGoddess415

Characters: Chuck/Sarah

Chapters: 1 of 3

Summary: Chuck is assimilating the new Intersect, and the missions just keep on coming. Songfic, check out Jason Mraz' "We Sing We Dance We Steal Things". This one is set to "If It Kills Me". Let's call this AU, since it's set after the season finale.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: If I owned 'em, Charah would've happened, and Season Three would be in the bag. Feedback good. :)

* * *

Chuck sighed as he suited up for the raid on the latest bunker linked to the Ring. It'd been a month since he'd uploaded the upgraded Intersect, a month spent assimilating new information until the downloads were practically instantaneous. His transformation into Agent Carmichael was well underway. It would be perfect, except...

_Hello_

_Tell me you know, yeah you've figured me out_

_Something gave it away_

_And it would be such a beautiful moment to see the look on your face_

_To know that I know that you know now_

Sarah. His eyes drank her in from across the room as she strapped on her throwing knives. She remained an enigma, unanswered questions bombarding him whenever she was near. Every so often he'd catch a look in her eye, which almost had her reaching out...

_And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking_

_You know nothing_

_Cause you and I, why we go carrying on for hours on end_

_We get along much better than you and your boyfriend_

Their cover remained the same, which was excruciating. Those stolen moments on the hunt for Orion were all they had, and Chuck held them close to remind himself why he was pushing himself so hard to control the Intersect.

For her. For himself. To prove he could take care of himself, that the Asset didn't need a bodyguard but a liaison. A beautiful blonde liaison, who sometimes looked at him like her heart ached for him as his did for her.

_Well all I really wanna do is love you_

_A kind much closer than friends use_

_But I still can't say it after all we've been through_

_And all I really want from you is to feel me_

_As the feeling inside keeps building_

_And I will find a way to you if it kills me_

_If it kills me_

He could confront her, he knew, but he also knew that doing so would end in nothing but heartache. Like gentling a wild horse, he had resolved to keep his approach slow and easy. He was mounting an assault on her defenses with special smiles just for her, a lingering touch, and more kisses in front of the newly-wedded Drs. Awesome. She couldn't turn away from him then, and his life was measured in the moments between feeling Sarah's kiss turn from cover to genuine want and need. Pushing the envelope wasn't something Chuck did often, but Machiavelli had nothing on him when it came to fighting for Sarah.

_How long can I go on like this?_

_Wishing to kiss you before I rightly explode?_

_And this double life I lead isn't healthy for me_

_In fact it makes me nervous_

_If I get caught I could be risking it all_

_Baby there's a lot that I'll miss in case I'm wrong_

Casey checked his guns and grunted for Chuck to do the same, finally breaking his reverie. Sarah glanced up and caught Chuck's gaze with a tightness to her face. He'd come to recognize that mask -- he had to, or his heart would break over the distance in her eyes. He knew better than to believe she felt nothing for him, but he also understood why she acted that way.

That kind of worried him.

Chuck still saw the Intersect as something he hadn't asked for, but now he used it to his advantage. He was starting to learn the spy game, and starting to play it, too. He'd never wanted that, was scared that he would lose himself in it. He often wondered when he'd start having casual sex to get access to people, or when assuming and shedding identities would become as natural as changing his underwear.

_All I really wanna do is love you_

_A kind much closer than friends use_

_But I still can't say it after all we've been through_

_And all I really want from you is to feel me_

_As the feeling inside keeps building_

_And I will find a way to you if it kills me_

_If it kills me_

But as he loaded into the van, he knew without a doubt he'd keep doing it, so long as Sarah was by his side. She made it worthwhile. Every mission kept her close, and got them a step closer to a real life after the Ring.

_If I should be so bold_

_I'd ask you to hold my heart in your hand_

_Tell you from the start how I've longed to be your man_

_But I never said I would_

_I guess I've gone and missed my chance again_

And this time, Chuck swore to himself, he'd ask her to run away _before _the debrief, before her new orders. And he wouldn't take no for an answer.

_Well all I really wanna do is love you_

_A kind much closer than friends use_

_But I still can't say it after all we've been through_

_And all I really want from you is to feel me_

_It's a feeling inside keeps building_

_And I will find a way to you if it kills me_

_If it kills me_

_If it kills me_

_I think it might kill me_

They rolled up to the storefront and made their final surveillance checks. Casey's eyes barked a warning to Chuck, as always. He nodded an acknowledgment as he pulled his mask down, and pulled his gun from his holster. Sarah was all business, only briefly glancing at him. Chuck had quickly become accustomed to her avoiding looking directly at him on these missions. For the first time, he understood the need for a 49B, to keep that last bit of distance.

The van door slid closed silently, Casey motioning for Chuck and Sarah to go for the door while he covered them. Sarah went to work picking the lock while Chuck disabled the first level of security. He had no illusions that this raid would even remotely be easy. Three levels of security before they actually breached the entrance to the Ring's bunker, and as far as he could tell, anything could wait on the other side of the bank vault door they used to secure it. Intel showed that there was no one in town who'd need to use it -- it was basically a safehouse. The hope, though, was to install Chuck and Orion's latest venture -- a microchip bug hybrid, undetectable and indistinguishable from any other microchip. Find a piece of electronic equipment, get it in, and get out.

Simple.

But simple was never simple in the spy game, Chuck had learned, and he was hyperaware as they entered. Casey and Sarah fanned out ahead of him, giving Chuck cover to consult his wrist computer to confirm the layout was accurate. With a nod, he moved to the next security panel to get entrance to the back room where the bunker entrance was. Orion's programming had turned Chuck into a human codebreaker as well as a fighting machine, and that skill had quickly proved invaluable on missions. Door #2 was breached quickly and as they entered the storage room, Chuck peeked at the computer and gestured down to the floor. A pallet of Ring Pops in the corner caught his attention, and he approached warily, Casey and Sarah at his heels.

"Under here," he breathed. Casey nodded and while Sarah covered their backs, Chuck helped him slide the pallet over until they saw the corner of a door in the floor.

"Wait," Chuck warned. Casey paused with a questioning grunt, but Chuck was already examining the pallet, suspicious of a booby trap once the pallet was moved too far.

He found what he suspected -- indications of a pressure trigger. "We've got to flip it on its side," he whispered. "And fast."

"Are you sure there's no way to disarm it?" Sarah's voice came through his earwig and he indulged for a brief second, imagining other things it could say.

"I don't think so, I think the fact you can turn it on its side quickly _is _how to disarm it -- you don't, and if anyone tries to follow, _they _trip it." He gestured at a thin metal pole, resembling nothing more than the prop rod under a car's hood, hanging off the side. "My guess is the only place to disarm it is down there."

He got Casey's grunt of approval and indulged in a small smile. If there was anything that remotely competed with Sarah's approval in the spy game, it was Casey's.

They flipped the pallet smoothly, keeping the weight on the trigger, a panel so small that had Chuck's instincts not been augmented by the Intersect, no one would have seen it. The bank vault door was thankfully small, narrow as the entrance to the con tower of a sub. As it was, the three of them had to heave the door open together and lunge through, quickly and carefully guiding the pallet back down. Casey and Sarah dropped down first, covering both directions. Behind them was a dead end, but a wide hallway with a number of doors lay ahead – never a good layout when trying to infiltrate enemy territory.

Chuck dropped down and immediately assumed the monkey in the middle spot, as was customary. The trio slowly inched down the hall, watching for doors opening, any sound out of the ordinary. Nothing. Chuck started to feel a little paranoid and even more aware of every inch of ground they covered. As they reached the end of the hallway, Sarah and Casey covered the opposite ends of the fork they hit.

And so it was Chuck who was the only one who heard the gunman come out behind them, and the only one who spotted the red light of the targeting laser appearing on the back of Sarah's head. The Intersect-inspired instincts were irrelevant in that moment – the instincts that took over were all his. Chuck jumped at her, and as he felt a white-hot piercing pain, he heard Sarah scream out "Chuck!!" before his world went black.

_And all I really want from you is to feel me_

_It's a feeling inside that keeps building_

_And I will find a way to you if it kills me_

_If it kills me_

_If it kills me_

_It might kill me_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of 3 – Sarah's POV

Disclaimers and summary in Ch. 1, and thanks to Jason Mraz again. This one is called "A Beautiful Mess," off the same album as the first.

* * *

_You've got the best of both worlds_

_You're the kind of girl who can take down a man,_

_And lift him back up again_

He thought she didn't see him. Sarah watched Chuck out of the corner of her eye, face hidden behind her hair as she strapped on her throwing knives. She indulged herself, testing the points on each before straightening back up just to look at him a little longer. He thought she didn't look at him anymore when that's all she could do.

_You are strong but you're needy,_

_Humble but you're greedy_

_And based on your body language,_

_And shoddy cursive I've been reading_

_Your style is quite selective,_

_Though your mind is rather reckless_

_Well I guess it just suggests_

_That this is just what happiness is_

What he didn't understand was that he didn't need to be in front of her. She saw him everywhere, all the time, smiling at her, loving her – she had finally admitted that to herself – and it made her…melt. And a CIA handler couldn't afford to melt. She was steely, cold. She was a honed blade. She was a weapon. No connections, just the missions, and use whatever means necessary to complete it.

_And what a beautiful mess this is_

_It's like we're picking up trash in dresses_

And he made her weak.

_Well it kind of hurts when the kind of words you write_

_Kind of turn themselves into knives_

She caught his gaze briefly and sighed inside. He thought she didn't know what he was doing, how he had knowingly signed his life back over to the government by taking the Intersect again. How he'd done it for himself, and for her. "How many times do you have to be a hero to realize that you _are _that guy?" Her words to him as they danced in the courtyard haunted her. She says she thinks he's a hero – and Chuck, knowing that…what else would he have done?

_And don't mind my nerve you could call it fiction_

_But I like being submerged in your contradictions, dear_

_'Cause here we are, here we are_

But deep down, she was proud of him, and it did make him even more attractive to her. He had it all in the palm of his hand. He could have just destroyed it, ended it, and he didn't. He knowingly downloaded the Intersect again. He voluntarily put himself in harm's way.

He was a hero.

He was _her_ hero. A hero who had never asked to be one, but who volunteered to be one, for the greater good. And that made him all the more extraordinary.

_Although you were biased I love your advice_

_Your comebacks they're quick_

_And probably have to do with your insecurities_

He had trained harder than any recruit she'd ever seen in the past month. He was determined to master the Intersect, and brought his full talent of snark and sarcasm to bear on himself, and even her, to do so, to push himself that little bit harder. The demands he'd placed on himself were far beyond any she would've suggested. It was like he was struggling to prove himself to her, that he could be just as good a human Intersect as Bryce. It tugged at her, knowing she had the power to pull him back to something resembling reasonable expectations.

_There's no shame in being crazy_

_Depending on how you take these_

_Words I'm paraphrasing this relationship we're staging_

"I love you." Three words. Unspoken, they drove Chuck harder than any orders ever could. And it killed her knowing that, it killed her knowing that she had the ability to keep him from driving himself into the ground, but she couldn't.

She'd been ordered not to.

_And what a beautiful mess this is_

_It's like picking up trash in dresses_

So she looked at him with distance in her eyes, because if she ever really let herself meet his gaze head-on in moments like this, moments when she knew he was risking his life to prove himself to her…

She'd crack. She'd tell him she loved him. She'd admit that it was a struggle every time not to kiss him back immediately, not to finish what they'd started that one almost imaginary morning.

_Well it kind of hurts when the kind of words you say_

_Kind of turn themselves into blades_

Distance physically, emotionally, distance in her voice. It was the only way to bear these missions. She shut down, shut off, did what she had to. Chuck wasn't Chuck, not the endearingly sweet man she'd fallen so hard for.

He was just the Asset, and she would do her job.

_And kind and courteous is a life I've heard_

_But it's nice to say that we played in the dirt, oh, dear_

'_Cause here we are, Here we are_

She picked the lock quickly, sneaking sidelong glances at Chuck, intent upon the security keypad. "You look like a real spy," she'd said, but that was nothing compared to the drive and confidence radiating from the figure in black standing next to her. He'd proven himself over and over to be invaluable, to be heroic, and to have that streak of unorthodox genius that saved the day. A real spy.

_Here we are…_

_We're still here_

_What a beautiful mess this is_

_It's like taking a guess when the only answer is yes_

As they entered the storefront she couldn't help but feel a bittersweet pang for the innocent boy that he'd been. Yet, she knew without a doubt that she'd be eternally, and oh so selfishly, grateful to Bryce for sending Chuck the Intersect.

Casey and Chuck flipped the pallet smoothly, and as they hoisted the door leading down to the bunker, she looked at the determination in Chuck's eyes and silently sighed again.

She was selfishly grateful because she had never realized how close she'd been to losing any trace of herself until Chuck reminded her of what it was to be normal, human, and real. Grateful, because she knew that, although she always considered Chuck downloading the Intersect again to be a choice, to him there'd been no other alternative. His instincts were always so pure.

So she should have known it would end like this.

Chuck leaped at her, and she turned around as she fell, watching the muzzle flash.

"Chuck!!"

She caught him as he hit the ground, Casey's return fire sounding far off as she watched Chuck gagging reflexively.

"No. No, no…Chuck, no…Oh Chuck…" she was babbling, crying, tearing both their masks off to use as she struggled to hold pressure on the wound through his neck. "Chuck, please, why did you do that, it was okay, I was okay…" His brown eyes just pleaded with her to understand.

"Because I love you," he choked out hoarsely.

"Don't you leave me, Chuck, don't you dare," she cried. She leaned in close, kissing him softly, "I love you too, don't leave me…"

She could swear she saw him smile as he went unnaturally limp in her arms.

_And through timeless words, and priceless pictures_

_We'll fly like birds not of this earth_

_And times they turn, and hearts disfigure_

_But that's no concern when we're wounded together_

_And we tore our dresses, and stained our shirts_

_But it's nice today, oh the wait was so worth it..._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of 3 – disclaimers etc. in Ch. 1

_No song this time. Thanks for all your feedback – keep it coming!_

* * *

They handed Ellie the flag folded from his coffin as Sarah watched from the treeline. Ellie's hands were shaking so badly, she nearly dropped it. But she made it through the service somehow, and Sarah knew the moment she was spotted. Ellie shrugged Devon's arm off and made a beeline through the mourners, brushing off solace to stand directly in front of Sarah.

The crack of the slap across her face was expected. But the bitter whisper tore Sarah to shreds. "I hope you're happy, goddamn it. Whatever story they tell me, I know he did it for you." The tears fell freely as she added, "He'd do-" Ellie caught herself, choking back a sob, and held her hand to her heart as she amended, "He _would have_ done anything for you. Do you even understand how much he loved you? Anything for you. _Anything_. And how do you repay him, how did you let him die?!" Ellie lifted a hand again, verging on hysteria, rage and pain radiating from her every pore. Devon pulled her away, shooting Sarah a glare as he folded Ellie into his arms and led her back to the gravesite. "Get the hell out of here," Devon angrily warned. "You don't deserve to mourn here."

As they walked away, Sarah sagged onto the tree trunk to cry. "I know," she whispered forlornly.

Casey approached cautiously. "Walker," he whispered, as gently as he could manage. "We have to go." She nodded slowly, but didn't turn around.

"Would you have told Ilsa you loved her if you were ordered not to?" she whispered back. Tipping her head back to stare at the sky, she added, "If you were threatened with reassignment if you did?"

A thoughtful grunt as Casey paused to actually think about her question. "Depends on why I had those orders, I guess." Another pause. "In this situation? Hell, Walker. I don't know."

She nodded again, just as thoughtfully. "I'm walking away, Casey."

"Figured you might."

"When you come for me, you don't have to make it quick and clean." She put her sunglasses on. "I don't deserve quick and clean."

Casey had no response. He just stood quietly as he watched her leave.

* * *

**5/16/09 A.N**.: Okay, decided to just post the different endings as the next two chapters, instead of confusing people. Hopefully it'll read a little better this way. If you want the happy ending, it's the next chapter, otherwise it's chapter 5 for the angst and darkness...


	4. Chuck vs the Instinct, Happy Ending

Chuck vs. the Instinct, Happy Ending

**A.N. **This follows directly after Chapter 3 of Chuck vs. the Instinct. Disclaimers etc. can be found in Chapter 1 of that story. Thanks for following along, hope you enoy!

* * *

Sarah jerked awake, calling for Chuck, tears streaming down her face. Darkness greeted her first and her heart felt leaden in her chest.

But then she heard it.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She scrubbed her hands down her face and swept at the tears as she drew deep breaths and listened in the stillness.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Then a hoarse voice. "Sarah?"

She nearly choked as she inhaled sharply. "Chuck?" Her voice broke as she whispered his name. She groped for the lamp at his bedside, staring wide-eyed at him.

"Ow!" he whispered. "Bright!"

She fumbled with the lampshade, tilting it away from him, nearly knocking the lamp off the table.

"Sarah?" he whispered again, his eyes open to slits. "Are you okay?"

"Am _I_-" He never ceased to amaze her. She sat back down in the armchair she'd pulled over to his bedside, leaning over to him and grabbing his hand tightly. "Chuck, you got shot!" His eyes flew open at that. "I don't give a damn how I am, are _you_-"

The door flew open, and Chuck finally seemed to register where he was. "Hospital?!" he croaked.

Sarah could only nod as Ellie and Devon led a troop of doctors into the room. "Chuck, you _idiot_!" Ellie exclaimed. "How could you even _think _to interfere in a burglary? Call 911 next time! Don't you ever do that to me again!"

She ran her hands over his face, peeking under the heavy bandage around his neck. "If that bullet had hit you half a millimeter more to the right, it would've done more than nick your carotid artery, it would've gone straight through, Chuck! You could've died!" She bopped him on the head gently and kissed his forehead, smoothing back his curls and finally stepping aside to allow the treating doctor better access to Chuck.

The interns the doctor led in clustered around the opposite side of the bed. "I don't know what this young man was thinking," she smiled at Chuck, "but he's very, very lucky," she explained.

"He wasn't thinking," Sarah whispered, "He's a hero," she continued, her eyes locked on Chuck. He reached the hand she held up to her face, gently stroking her cheek and wiping away tears she hadn't known she was shedding.

"Don't cry," he whispered, oblivious to the three-ring circus to his other side. "I never want you to cry over me."

She only cried harder, smiling at the same time. She leaned up to whisper in his ear, "That's why I love you." Orders be damned, she thought rebelliously.

He tried to turn his head towards her, "Ow, ow, ow, ow".

"Chuck! Stop it!" Sarah admonished. She stood over him so he could see her face. "What?"

He just smiled the trillion watt Cheshire cat smile that he saved just for her, and closed his eyes. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

The doctors filed out, and from amidst the throng as they did a familiar voice said, "I didn't know the circus was in town, Bartowski. They need another clown?"

Without opening his eyes, Chuck merely replied, "Hey, Casey."

"Hey yourself," Casey growled as he nodded to Sarah, Ellie and Devon. "You still alive?"

"Obviously," Chuck sighed.

"Good. Then you'll feel this." With that warning, Casey punched him in the leg. Hard.

"Casey!" Sarah and Ellie both yelled.

Chuck's eyes had opened again at the punch, and Casey leaned over the bed, looking directly into Chuck's startled gaze. "Don't _ever_ do that again, Bartowski."

"Aw, you _do _care!" Chuck replied with a smile.

"Stuff it, Bartowski. No more heroic leaps, got it?"

"Yes, Colonel," Chuck sarcastically retorted.

"Colonel? Dude! You play those military games too, Casey?! That's why Chuck said Colonel, Ellie," Devon jumped in, babbling and gesturing emphatically at all of them. While he was slowly getting more accustomed to it, it was still hard for him to process the injuries that came with Chuck being a spy, resulting in, well, verbal vomit, to say the least. Casey and Sarah shared a look as Devon enthusiastically continued, "War games, Ellie, those video games they play, with the military and the colonels-"

Ellie frowned at Devon, "Yes, honey, I know what war games are; Chuck's only been my brother for all his life." She raised a hand to feel his forehead. "Are you okay?"

Devon nodded excessively, "Yeah, of course, why wouldn't I be? I'm always fine, I'm awesome, always, fine...How are you?" He gave her the double gun point for good measure.

Ellie shook her head and sighed. "I think you're overtired, hon." Turning to Sarah and Casey, "Will you stay with Chuck?"

Sarah nodded, "Of course," and Casey grunted affirmatively.

"Thanks," Ellie smiled. "Chuck, I'll be back to pick you up in the morning, okay?"

"Yup, thanks, Ell. Sorry to scare you."

She kissed his forehead, adding, "Just consider that Casey can't get to you while you sleep. I can, and I still remember all those embarrassing sleepover tricks. So unless you want Sarah thinking you wet the bed regularly, you keep out of trouble!"

"Yes, General Bartowski!" Chuck replied with a smile.

Devon opened his mouth, but Ellie just took his hand and dragged him out of the room, leaving Team Bartowski behind.

"Awesome really has to work on that," Sarah remarked.

Chuck could only laugh. "This _is_ him being better."

"I could always-" Casey began.

"No!" Sarah and Chuck answered together.

"Damn."

* * *

_So? What do you think? I just couldn't decide whether I wanted to be happy or dark, so I figured I'd leave it to you, dear readers. :)_


	5. Chuck vs the Instinct, Angst Ending

_Chuck vs. the Instinct, Angst Ending_

**A.N. **This follows directly from Chuck vs. the Instinct, disclaimers there, but additional disclaimer here --

**Disclaimer: **Dark. Character death. You have been warned.

* * *

The first call came at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, six years later. She picked up groggily. "Hello?"

_"Just so you know, I am going to get this thing out of my head one day. I will. And when I do, I'm going to live the life that I want with the girl that I love, because I'm not going to let this thing rob me of that, I won't."_

Sarah's heart leapt to her throat as she listened to his painfully familiar voice. The opening volley had been fired.

It was time, and Casey was coming.

***

The second call came in late summer, on what would have been Chuck's 35th birthday. Sarah was at a fundraiser in Chicago, as a bodyguard for a wealthy CEO who loved having a pretty brunette follow him everywhere. It didn't hurt that she could put a 350 pound man on his ass with her pinky.

She'd found working in security was a natural fit when she left the agency, so she'd gone back to brunette, changed her name, forged her papers, started over. One of her crew came over, holding out a phone. "It's for you, Lisa," her assistant said. She frowned and took the phone. "Hello?"

_"Do you think I made a mistake, Sarah?"_ came Chuck's voice. She swallowed hard, remembering that day.

"Do you think I made a mistake, Sarah?" he'd asked after one particularly grueling training session. He'd sprawled on the padded floor of the dojo they'd created for his training. Bruises blossomed all over his body, and he painstakingly cracked his ankles, knees, back, wrists, shoulders -- even his neck, against her advice. "I don't know if I can do this," he'd said, looking up at her. She'd sat down next to him, motioning for him to sit in front of her as she massaged the worst of the knots from his back.

Her voice came from the phone -- Casey had apparently had surveillance even there, in what was supposed to be a safe space.

"I know it's hard," she'd replied. "It was hard for me too, when I was training. But I don't think you made a mistake -- I think you were very brave, and I think you should be proud of all you've accomplished."

She vividly remembered struggling not to reach out to him, not to hug him or reassure him that it would all be okay in the end. That wasn't a handler's job, and she had been ordered and threatened not to cross that line – that probably accounted for the surveillance of their training sessions.

He'd been silent for a while. But then, in a whisper, "Are _you_ proud of me?" he'd asked. And, her heart aching to say more, she'd answered as honestly as she could. "Yes, Chuck, I am. You're one of the best men that I've ever met." He'd leaned his head back to smile brilliantly up at her, basking in her answer. She'd gently run a hand down his face and kissed his forehead, both she and Chuck closing their eyes to enjoy the feeling.

The dial tone served as an unspoken warning – he knew who she was now, where she was. It was only a matter of time.

***

The third call came, as she'd known it would, on the anniversary of his death. She'd tried to go about her business as usual, but had failed miserably as usual. Instead she sat in her apartment, drowning her sorrows in vodka as she did every year, but also waiting for the phone to ring. Her apartment phone, this time, and she smiled bitterly to herself. Casey wanted to be abundantly sure she was constantly looking over her shoulder. "Not quick and clean at all," she thought to herself as she picked up the receiver.

"_Um, Sarah, you know when you think you're gonna die and your whole life is supposed to flash in front of you? That didn't exactly happen for me yesterday, in fact, mostly it was just a list that I saw, a list of stuff that I haven't done, and things that I haven't had a chance to say, so today, today I wanna start crossing things off of my list and this is the first thing that I promised myself that I'd do." _

She closed her eyes against the memory of Chuck stepping closer to her, pulling her just a little closer, her heart starting to pound, as she'd been shocked and thrilled at how perceptive he was, to see through her.

"_We need to break up." _

"_What?"_ She'd been totally taken aback, but kicked herself at the same time for thinking he could see through a trained liar like her.

"_You know, you know, like fake, fake break up our pretend relationship." She'd swallowed hard against all that she wanted to say. "I just can't do this anymore, you know?" he'd continued. "The longer we go, the longer we keep trying to fool people into believing that we're a real couple, the person I keep fooling the most, is me."_

She took another shot of vodka and closed her eyes again as she waited for the dial tone. "I'll see you soon," Casey said. Her eyes flew open as the dial tone sounded.

***

She wanted to run. She wasn't proud of it, she knew she deserved what was finally coming to her. She had asked for it to be this way – if she ran, he would find her. As it was, all she was sure of was when he did catch up to her, it would be a clean shot to the head. If she ran, even that certainty would be gone.

So she stayed. And she went through every day as if everything was normal. As if she wasn't being stalked by a highly skilled assassin, or being slowly driven out of her mind with guilt and grief she'd tried to bury.

She had made it a month after his death before she cried. She hadn't allowed herself to feel or grieve – the closest she'd come was at the funeral. Being the daughter of a con artist taught her how to shed identities easily, but it also taught her that any emotion, any vulnerable moment in the first month after doing so was extremely risky. It was ingrained in her, and the shock of losing Chuck had reduced her to those survival instincts. She had been driven to run back then.

She wouldn't run now.

***

It was November 10th. She didn't know why it was significant. But she walked in from work, closed the door, hadn't even turned on the lights yet. Through the apartment came her own voice.

"_You know, someday when the Intersect is out of your head, and you have the life you've always wanted...you'll forget all about me."_

His voice replied,_ "I seriously doubt that."_

She set her keys down on the sideboard and walked in. Her instincts screamed at her to fight, to survive. Instead, she said to the darkness, "What took you so long?"

Casey replied, "Had some things to set in order. Got the Ring on the run. Had to make it worth it for him."

She closed her eyes as the tears welled. "I'm glad," she whispered. She straightened. "I'm ready," she said.

He grunted an acknowledgment. "By the way, they still blame you, and they still hate you." She heard him release the safety on the gun as her heart clenched. "So do I," he said, and pulled the trigger.

She crumpled to the ground on the neoprene he'd covered her floors with earlier. He coded in for a cleanup to her apartment. As he held the gun to his temple, he murmured, "Semper Fi, Bartowski," to the darkness and pulled the trigger again.

* * *

**5/16/09 A.N.: **Warned you, didn't I? I couldn't decide how to end it, so I wrote both endings. Truth to tell I kind of enjoyed this one a little more, don't know if I've pegged Sarah and Casey, but I could see Chuck's death warping the both of them. Let me know if you're still breathing, dear reader? :)

Call #1 was from the end of Chuck vs. the Lethal Weapon.

Call #2 I made up.

Call #3 was from the end of Chuck vs. the Truth.

Call #4 was from the end of the conversation by the fountain in Chuck vs. the Break-Up.

And by the way, November 10th is the Marines Corps' birthday. Semper Fi.


End file.
